Adolph kbim



(No Model.)

' A. KEIM.

MINERAL PAINTING PROCESS.

No. 237,942. Patented Nov. 6, 1883.

" .Zizvszzzar:

y/ewnm I IL PETERS, vna omuu n lm, Wnhingcn. 0.6.

y f name STATES PATENT FFICEQ ADOLPH KEIM, or MUNICH, BAVARIA, GERMANY.

' MlNERAL PAlNfTiNe PROCESS.

' SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 287,942, dated November 6, 1883. l l 7 Application filed May 9, 1883. (No model.)

To oiZZ whom it may concerm'.

: Be it known that I, 'ADoLPH KEI'M, a citizen of the German Empire, residing at Munich,

11 in the Kingdom of Bavaria, have invented ceri tain new and useful Improvements in a Min- ;cral Painting Process, of which the following is aspecification, reference being had therein;

.tothe accompanying drawings, 1

This invention consists in a mode of pro-- to paring foundations and paints for mural paint ing, and in treating paintings, as. fully described hereinafter, to insure their preservation. a

The invention, which is applicable in the;

r5.,first.place to rendering both portable and fixedi. e., stationary paintings weather-l proofiand in the second place to rendering;

paintings of all descriptions absolutely unal-} terable, consists under the former or first head;

, zoof four operations-or manipulations, which;

are taken up in their turn, to wit: A The production of the prime ground cmd of the 1 pain-ting-gronnd.-A new dry Wall-surface not;

-yet plastered, or anold wall-surface cleaned of; 2 21.11 plaster, is cast or covered with common mortar of good quality, consisting of slaked .lime, washed quartz-sand, infusorial eartl1, vand water, so as to make all joints, uneven. spots, and rough parts smooth. lVhcnever, 0 water is mentioned in this specification it is;

- understood to mean distilled or filtered rain-; water. The best proportion of infusorial earth to sand in the above mortar is as one to six, by measure. After this cast has set for-one day, it is thoroughly moistened, and then the ;painting-ground is put on to a depth not eX cceding two millimeters. This ground consists of fourparts of pure white quartz sand, three and a half parts of infusorial if aoearth, and one and a half parts of thick lime paste. When dry, it is brushed over twice .with a solution of silicated hydrofluoric acid, and then impregnatedthree or four times with 1 xsilicate of potash, chemically pure, and com 45.pletely saturated with silicic acid. At the first. and second impregnations the silicate of potash should have a, consistency of 12 Baum, or 'a specific gravity of 1,090; at the a 1 thirdand fourth, a consistency of 18 Baum.

Each time before a new layer is applied the f-preccding one must have dried completely.

the same and held there.

- the purpose.

are ribbed or roughened on one side.

I In order to remove the salts soluble in water, which crystallize out during the drying, the surface must be well and repeatedly washed before being painted on. A dry wallsurface composed of sound material, which is to serve as the prime ground for a painting,

is rare in new buildings, and even rarer in old ones; but it occurs quite often that old, damp, rot-infected places are to be painted on, and for such instances the following supplementary manipulation is intended to secure durability to the paintings on such defective centimeter, is exposed for some days to the It is then carefully swept, and covered with an extremely thin watery mor air to get dry;

tar, consisting of one and a half partsof cement, two parts of pure quartz-sand, and a half a part of powdered manganese, to such a degree of thicknessthat plates of clay, made expressly for the purpose, can be pressed onto The surfaces of these should be well leveled by a straightedge. In this operation not more mortar should be used than is absolutely necessary for These plates of clay are represented in the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which Figure l is a face view, and Fig. 2 is a side view. The plates I should be made of a good porous clay, in any desired sizes and thickness. If one size is made, say, twenty by forty centimeters, the other may be five millimeters less in each dimension, or nineteen and a half by thirty-nine and a half centimeters. Into the larger plates, A, are cut grooves d on one side. The smaller plates, B,- After having been thoroughly dried, all the plates are glazed or cemented on one side and then placed in pairsone upon the other, with their glazed surfaces in contact, andin such a manner, as shown in the drawings, Fig, 2, that their edges do not coincide, butexpose their glazed surfaces to the extent of, say, about two centimeters. The plates are baked in this position, and, united by the glazing or cement, they form one plate. It is the grooved side roo - position by soluble glass.

- time.

that is pressed onto the mortar a, the latter entering the grooves, so that when it is dry the plate cannot be removed from it except in pieces. The ribbed front of the plates offer a sufficiently large surface for the paintingground. The manner in which the plates are placed one upon the other breaks joints between the layers and prevents the possibility of any humidity penetrating through the lower joints of the plates, wherethey are set together, as the free places are in each instance covered by the overlapping part of the upper and outer plate. The upper joints, formed by the circumstance that the upper plate is set at one side, as shown, or is five millimeters smaller than the lower one, and of which the glazing of the lower plate forms the ground, are then filled up with a thick cement made of oakingtar, .asphaltum, turpentine, and powdered manganese. This cement is then melted in with a hot soldering-iron so far that only half the depth of the joint is filled up. The melting in, however, is done only after the plates have thoroughly dried in position-say for a day or two. Then, with a rather thin mortar, consisting of three parts of washed quartzsand, two parts of marblesand, two parts of caustic lime, one part of infusorial earth, and one part of pulverized marble, the remaining portion of the joints is well filled up, and the surfaces of the plates smoothly finished. On

this level the painting ground already described is laid on, and the manipulation finished, as specified,

The purification and preparation of the colors.The first condition is that the materials from which the colors are made be always of the same quality, as this regulates the quality of the additions also. Only the purest mineral colors, free from any artificial admixtures and adulterations,-and containing no sub-" stances destructible by heat, must be employed. \Vell fitted for use are zinc oxide, artificially prepared iron oxides, all baryt es and artificial mineral colors free from sulphuric acid, Naples yellow, chrome, cobalt-blue, ultramarine-blue, cobalt green, ultramarine green, oxide of chrome, hydrated oxide of chrome, chrome-red, ultramarine-red, German black, bone-black,.&c.

In fixing a painting the colors should suffer no change of shade in consequence of the strong alkaline nature of the fixative, and should be freed from all substances soluble in water and in potash lye, or subject to decom To prevent such a change, and to so purify the colors, they are finely powdered and mixed with a certain quantity, according to their chemical properties, of dilute soluble glass, well saturated with potassa, in whichtheyare digested for some Then' follows dilution with water and addition of carbonate of ammonia in sufficient quantity to eliminate all the silicic acid contained in the soluble glass. The colors, mixed most intimately in this way with hydrate of cadmium-yellow, orange of ,ryta may be added to the colors, according to their chemical natures. The mixtures thus obtained are powdered to the finest degree in a stone mill.

The preparation of the fixatioe.-Two liters of chemically-pure silicate of potash, one of caustic ammonia, one hundred grams of caustic potash, and one hundred and twenty of pulverized marble are heated together in an.

air-tight pot in awater bath during six hours.

It is then slowly cooled off and the liquid.

poured off and kept in well-closed glass jars or bottles, ready for .use.

The fixing of the pat'htihg.This is done with an atomizer furnished with an arrangement to warm the fixative in awater bath. The painting must be fixed four or five times, during which the temperature of the painting and of the surrounding atmosphere must be raised to and maintained at from 30 to 40 Reaumurby coke-stoves at a red heat, and care must be taken that the moist air constantly forming can be drawn off from time to time. After the fixing, the painting is moistened with carbonate of ammonia, and then washed with distilled water until the .latter no longer shows an alkaline reaction. In order to render the face of the painting absolutely insensible to the influence of water, it may first be warmed and then impregnated with a solution of paraffine in benzole, petroleum, ether, turpentine, or similar substances. The

paraffine is to act in no way as a binding medium, but simply as a preservative. For the purpose of producing portable wall-paintings, the painting-ground, instead of being put on or applied to a wall, is put on plates of glass, stone, wire, or the like, which are applied to the wall after the picture is completed. Then proceed as hereinbefore indicated.

Under the second head of the preamble of this specification paintings are rendered absolutely, unalterable, as follows: They are treated, in the main, in the same manner as hereinbefore described. As a substratum, glass or other plates of which the back is covered with thin lead-foil or stone'plate or mica areused, as well as wire, canvas, and wood. It is possible to employ for such paintings the common raw canvas, or canvas covered with the painting-ground for mineral painting. Still, for some purposes, it is preferable to make use of a canvas prepared in the following manner: Canvas of any suitable strength is steeped twice in baths of gypsum water or baryta-water, and then in a soluleft to dry thoroughly before reimmersion.

The canvas is then washed with rain-water until there is no more acid reaction. It is then smoothed out between warm iron cylinders; and finally covered on the back with a simple thin oil ground, which under certain circum stances can be applied also after the painting is finished. The painting is executed. with the same colors as prescribed for wall-paintings, fixed in the same way, and washed with carbonate of ammonia. In certain cases,when the artist finds it desirable or necessary, such paintings can be continued and finished with oil-colors, and may also be primed by this method. When the painting is finished, it should be varnished with the best shellac varnish, provided no oil has been used in it; otherwise good oil-varnish is to be employed.

The advantages of the above described method of painting easel-pictures are the following: The execution is quite as easy as by any other method, the coloring and the charactor of the painting-are absolutely unalterable, the substrata and the ground material are indestructible, and the paintings can be cleaned without any danger, whenever it is necessary,

by, means of dilute acids, alkalies, and water, according to the nature of the impurities by which they have been soiled.

. I do not abandon or dedicate to the public any patentable features set forth herein and not hereinafter claimed, but reserve the right to claim the same, either in a reissue of any 'patent that may be granted ,upon this application or in other applications for Letters Patent that I may make. I r

I do not claim, broadly, the use of silicate solutions with pigments, nor a fixative having an alkaline silicate as an ingredient thereof, as set forth in Letters Patents Nos. 15,520 and 22,878. v

I therefore claim 1. The withindescribed improvement in preparing foundations for-mural painting, consisting in first applying a mortar-coat containing lime, sand, and infusorial earth, in then impregnating the mortar first with a solution of silicated' hydrofluoric acid, then with a solution of alkaline'silicate, and removing the soluble salts'by washing, substantially as set forth.

2. The preparation of afoundation for mural paintings, consisting in first applying a bed of mortar and impregnatingit with alkaline silicate solution, and then applyingthereto paints treated to prevent the chemical action on the same of the ingredients of the foundation, substantially as described.

3. A wall-plaster or paintingground con sisting of caustic lime, quartzsand, pulverized marble, and infusorial earth, treated by silicated hydrofluoric acid, and hardened by silicate of potash, substantially as described, and for the purposes set forth.

4. The process of preparing the colors by silicate of potash mixed with hydrate of mag nesia and alumina, finer-spar, zinc oxide, pulverized marble or glass, carbonate of baryta, and manganese, substantially as specified.

5. The fixativeconsisting of chemically-pure silicate of potash, caustic ammonia, caustic potash, and marble, substantially as specified 6. The application to a wall to be painted of plates overlaid and cemented to breakjoints, substantially as set forth.

7. Plates A with grooves (Z d, in combination with plates B, joined together, substantially as described, and for the purpose set forth.

In testimony whereof I atfix my signature, in presence of two witnesses, this 18th day of July, 1882.

ADOLPH KEIM. 

